Google’s Schaft Robot Dominates Pentagon Contest

A member of the Schaft Inc. robotics team looks on as the company robot opens a door on Friday, Dec. 20, 2013 at the Homestead-Miami Speedway.

Dion Nissenbaum/The Wall Street Journal

WASHINGTON – It may not be the prettiest robot on the scene, but the angular blue creation from Google Inc.’s newly acquired Japanese start-up is poised to secure more Pentagon funding to develop a creation capable of venturing into dangerous disaster zones to help humans.

Schaft Inc.’s robot dominated the two-day Pentagon Robotics Challenge Trials this weekend in Florida, where 16 teams competed at the NASCAR race track south of Miami for one of eight slots to secure more federal development funds.
The Pentagon set up a kind of robot Boot Camp, where the entrees had to run through a series of eight tests, from turning off a value and opening a series of doors to removing “debris” and driving an all-terrain-vehicle.

Schaft, which was recently acquired by Google, led the field, securing 27 of 32 possible points.

The top eight winners are now eligible to secure up to $1 million in funding in 2014 in the run up to a final competition next year where the Pentagon will award $2 million to the ultimate winner.

The Pentagon launched the competition in hopes of sparking development of a new kind of robot that can venture into dangerous places to help aid workers. The idea grew out of the inability of rescue workers to contain the radiation exposure at Japan’s Fukushima nuclear plant after the 2011 earthquake and tsunami. Had a robot been able to enter the plant and vent some steam, dangerous explosions could have been averted, Pentagon robotics officials argued.

Seven other competitors, including teams from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the NASA-backed Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., and Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh are all eligible for more development funding.

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